Foodservice Distribution: A Consolidating Market
Summary
Sophisticated distributors, in partnership with private equity firms, have driven scale and enhanced their value propositions by executing aggressive acquisition strategies and investing in technology, e-commerce capabilities and infrastructure. DFS now offers more than 100,000 SKUs, maintains deep relationships with more than 53,000 unique customers across 250,000 commercial kitchen locations and holds the №1 market position in direct-sourced original component manufactured replacement parts. TriMark USA, the foodservice industry’s largest provider of equipment, supplies and design services, has more than doubled from sales of $560 million in 2011 to $1.5 billion today. Over the past five years, top distributors have captured billions of dollars of share, leaving small and medium-sized players to compete over a smaller piece of the market. However, small and medium-sized players have the opportunity to adapt rapidly by identifying and completing acquisitions and internally developing systems and technology to enhance their value propositions and capture share from competitors.